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The huge hall-table's oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar's head frowned on
high,

Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell
How, when, and where the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round, in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce,
At such high-tide, her savory goose.
Then came the merry maskers in,
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;

White skirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visors made:
But, O, what maskers richly dight
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
"T was Christmas broached the mightiest

ale;

'T was Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the| year.

And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the arméd man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story,
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face.

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

[1772-1834.]

GENEVIEVE.

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, And sometimes starting up at once

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve;

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death,
The Lady of the Land;

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

109

And how she wept, and clasped his knees; | On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Elane!
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base
And how she tended him in vain;
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful
And ever strove to expiate
Form!

The scorn that crazed his brain; And that she nursed him in a cave, And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay;

His dying words- but when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp

Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long.

She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

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Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,

An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal

shrine,

Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer

I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wert blending with

my thought,

Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy,
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing, there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to
Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,

Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart,

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From dark and icycaverns called you forth, | Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! Down those precipitous, black, jagged

rocks,

Forever shattered and the same forever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,

Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came),

Here let the billows stiffen and have rest? Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

Adown enormous ravines slope amain, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,

And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!

Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven

Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun

Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of

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thou

That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused
with tears,

Solemnly seemest like a vapory cloud
To rise before me Rise, O, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the
Earth!

Thou kingly Spirit throned among the
hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to
Heaven,

Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises
God.

CHRISTABEL.

PART I

T is the middle of night by the castle clock,

And the owls have awakened the crowing
cock;
Tu-whit! tu-whoo!

And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
From her kennel beneath the rock
She maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the
hour;

Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over-loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray;
"T is a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;

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